ProjectWorld and World Congress for Business Analysts blog seeks to bring together all levels of project management and business analysis expertise, from diverse industries and perspectives, across business groups and information technology. Our goal is build successful collaboration and share content, best practices, techniques, and networking.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Projects are the lifeblood of every organization, projects
create things, drive growth, and a company that has no projects going on is definitely
not a successful company.

This is what makes project managers an increasingly
crucial part of organizations, whether they are a freelancer or in house the managerial
role of a project is vital to the realization of that project’s goals. This leads to the initial decisions that the
project manager must make, "what are the project’s goals?"

A project manager must decide what the goals of the project
are before the project starts.

Going
into a project knowing what you want provides everyone involved with a clear
cut sense of purpose and understanding. There’s nothing more demoralizing then devoting
time and efforts into achieving some goal only to be told halfway through that the
goal doesn’t matter anymore and to go for a new one.

This is why project managers need to be well
versed in their understanding of the project and equally organized so they can
plan exactly what they want to get from the project.

Strategic development and time management
skills come into play at this pre-project stage and are essential for any
project manager. Once they apply these skills to figure out the goals of the
project they next need to decide who will be completing these goals

Allocation of resources is another key requirement of any
good project manager, and perhaps the most important resource is labor. The project
manager needs to decide who is going to complete what task and when. This
requires an intense understanding of members of the project team, what skills
they possess, and even who they work best with. Although small teams within a
project are common they aren’t necessarily required which makes recognizing when
a team is needed and when individual work is best fall under the needed skills
of a project manager.

Personal interactions and general people skills should be
another strong suit of a good project manager, project managers need to be able
to easily communicate with their team members and effectively express the goals
they want them to achieve. Once everyone knows what they are doing, how they
are doing it, and when they are doing it the only thing left is execution.

It may sound simple but actual execution of (what should be)
a well planned strategy can be a long process.

Project managers should be
monitoring development of the project and stay ready to make changes to the
strategy for any unforeseen situations that arise during the execution
stage.

Communication between all parties
involved is also vital. It’s the job of the project manager to make sure customers,
executives, project members, and everyone in between is kept on the same page
with developments and changes. Thanks to increasingly available communications technology
from smartphones to Skype this is becoming an easier and more fluid process and
will continue to do so.

Being an efficient project manager requires strong
leadership, organizational, and communication skills to name a few. It may seem
like a tall order but it’s because of this that effective project managers are
increasing their demand and Forbes listed project managers in their Top 10 Best Freelance Careers.